So, armed with little more than a flask and a tent, I blindly followed Sandy in a Landy through some absolutely stunning countryside and got to experience some amazing green lanes.
I know it is not easy to put a days laning together, but armed with a few copies of Total Off Road and Landrover Owner (or similar), Sandy did a damn fine job at leading the way.
Having met up in Thirsk on Wednesday afternoon, we made our way to a campsite in Ugthorpe, complete with pub grub and bar facilities.
Thursday morning we set off in the general direction of the moors...
Lane 1
This lane lead down to a deceiving ford, that had a "deep bit" (it's on video)
Lane 2
With a couple of short lanes done, and the oil in the transfer box nice and warm, we made for the hills...
Which brought us to Lane 3:
At the gate to the forest, we parked up and cooked a late breakfast - only bacon butties, but they tasted so good.
Fed and watered, we headed down into the woods...
A twenty minute road section would take us to our next lane, that we would spend the most part of the afternoon on, for the map showed it to be 10 miles long.
Lane 4
On entering the forest, there is a switch-back climb up the mountain, with some good technical rocky sections (on video, but stills a little later on our return)
Then it was across the moors proper, on a glorious day...
It was a cracking place to take photo's of your car(s):
We drove to the end of the 10 mile lane, made a loop and returned via another back to it, to tackle the steps again, but this time down hill...
An absolutely cracking days laning. We met walkers, horse riders, motorcyclists and mountain bikers and not a frown was seen - a couple of bikers even stopped to watch us ascend the rocky steps, there was even an aged walker that gave us a geography lesson at one of the summits.
A big thank you to Sandy for arranging it all
We ate and drank heartily in the pub that evening, whilst reviewing the video and photos on the laptop.
Fridays report will have to wait until I find the camera's USB lead to get at the photos.
Lawrence
:)
